Twice in a Lifetime (Love Found) Read Online Free PDF

herself for caring. The remainder of his birthday cake from yesterday mocked her from the kitchen counter. “Do you know I dreamed about him last night? Disgusting!”
    “You say something?” Reese had a mess of her own scattered across the living room floor.
    She pried one reluctant eyelid open. Reese could just wipe that smirk lurking across her lips. “Just muttering.” With a decisive thump she deposited her empty glass on the coffee table. “No, dammit. I’m mad! This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
    “What wasn’t?”
    “This is all your fault.”
    Reese continued to shuffle papers, sorting them into piles. “Seriously, if you’re going to blame me for something, it’s only polite to tell me what it is.”
    How could Reese stay so calm when gymnasts were practicing their floor exercises in her stomach? “Him.” She jerked her chin toward the cake plate. “It’s only been two weeks. Well, sixteen days actually, but we’ll call it two weeks to simplify things.”
    “Ah, Ben. Now I understand.”
    “Of course, Ben.” She picked up her empty glass and frowned into it. “We hardly spend any time together—and I should be okay with that—but I feel like something’s clutching at me–” She grabbed a fistful of the shirt covering her chest, “Right here. Just because he’s two states away.” With a sigh she frowned into her glass again, shoved the pile off her lap and pressed to her feet.
    Reese finally looked up. “They’ll be home tomorrow. Bring me back some of that.”
    “Snippets. That’s all the time we have together. Dammit, we barely even have time to grab a coffee.” She reached the kitchen and snatched a clean glass from the shelf, filled it along with her own. Tossed the empty bottle into the recycling. “Oh, excuse me. We also had lunch together, precisely twice.” It was tricky holding up two fingers along with the wine glasses, but she was determined. On tiptoe she navigated her way back through the minefield in the living room. “Sandwiches on the grass.”
    “Better known as a picnic. It’s considered romantic.”
    That smirk was back on Reese’s face again, damn her. She shoved the glass into her hand, then picked her way back to the couch and sank into it. She and Ben spent an afternoon sitting in the sun and talked about nothing—books, movies, professors they both liked—and hated. And they shared a few knee-weakening kisses. Her shoulders drooped. “Yeah, it kind of was.”
    “Again, tomorrow.”
    Her heart skittered so she scowled. “I don’t even want a boyfriend.”
    “That doesn’t seem to matter, now. Does it?”
    No, dammit, it didn’t seem to matter. “But I don’t want a boyfriend.”
    “I say it’s too late, girlfriend. But maybe if you chant it three times and click your sparkly red heels, your wish will come true.”

 
     
     
    With a few good swings, Ben tested the weight of the bat. He’d been hitting well since he got back in the lineup.
    Jake sidled up to the nearby chain link. “You’re up first.”
    “Yeah, I saw.” Members of the team milled around, cutting up before the game. With Jake bent over to tighten his cleats Ben lifted his gaze to scan the stands.
    Jake straightened, bent a knee back and propped his foot against the fence. “They’re here. Sixth row.”
    Ben scowled and spun back around to face the diamond. The opposing team was leaving the field. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
    Jake merely laughed and slapped him on the back. “Keep your head in the game, B.”
    “Fuck you.” He waited until Jake got caught in conversation with the catcher, then turned back and found her. With a textbook open on her lap. His scowl settled into a frown. Why bother coming at all if she wasn’t planning to watch him play?
    With the sun glaring in his eyes, he scanned the rest of the stands, found Vivian sitting beside some stranger. She was hot, always had been. She’d stirred his blood for a while, too. But today there